Daily Archives: September 17, 2014

Amazon.com Inc. introduced a handful of new devices, including a $100 tablet aimed at the masses and a high-end electronic-reader that the company says is the closest e-reading experience to plain paper.

The $200 Kindle Voyage is the thinnest Amazon e-reader so far and has a magnesium body. Its flush display is much higher in pixel density and 39% brighter than Amazon’s $100 Kindle Paperwhite, making it easier on the eyes, especially in direct sunlight, the company said. The screen’s texture even looks slightly speckled, reminiscent of high-quality paper fiber.

I didn’t expect Amazon to go the premium route, even after I saw the Japan price for the Voyage was about US$250 (something I figured was a Japan Thing…).

ZooPDA — which has often been critical of Xiaomi — has published an exposé that reveals why Xiaomi phones often sell out quickly, leading many everyday people to complain they can never buy one at the advertised price [Google Translate; also drop URL into Bing Translator — this needs dual translation!].

There are four types of scalpers. Perhaps the worst are the groups on QQ who “invest” in buying quantities of Xiaomi phones to resell at higher prices.

Even though Xiaomi has safeguards such as CAPCHAs to defeat bots and mass purchases, there’s software to circumvent that.

Another safeguard to prevent scalping is an SMS confirmation message. But that only led to the creation of a service that will “launder” the SMS!

This is an article someone really needs to translate into clear English.

I’ve always suspected that “limited” sales of the kind Xiaomi engages in would lead to abuse. But the scale of it is astounding. It’s an entire industry that’s been created to milk would-be Xiaomi buyers.

This further leads me to think that the reason why the MiPad went from limited to open sales so quickly is a lack of popularity. While it’s the best Android tablet available in China, Xiaomi violated its reputation for surprisingly-affordable pricing. That alienated potential buyers. Given a choice between the MiPad and an iPad, people would rather spend double for the best — or just spend far less for a “good enough” Chinese brand tablet.

Ton Siedsma is nervous. He made the decision weeks ago, but keeps postponing it. It’s the 11th of November, a cold autumn evening. At ten past eight (20:10:48 to be exact), while passing Elst station on the way home, he activates the app. It will track all of his phone’s metadata over the coming week.

Metadata is not the actual content of the communication, but the data about the communication; like the numbers he calls or whatsapps, and where his phone is at a particular moment. Whom he e-mails, the subject of the e-mails and the websites he visits.

Wall Street understands the value and meaning of metadata. That’s how they make their money. Metadata allows you to see relationships, to make connections, to see what’s otherwise hidden.

That dragnetting metadata is permitted without a warrant is a violation of rights that would cause our Founders to launch a new revolution.

I haven’t been updating my Sizes Table because so many devices have died and so few new ones interest me these days. Plus it seems everything is converging into a few “standard” sizes.

But it seems the size of things is coming as a bit of a shock to the Apple adherents now that the company is offering two new sizes. Suddenly the size of the Samsung Galaxy Note they laughed at is upon them.